Skip the free trial: here’s the email tool that kept my side hustle alive

I started my first Best side hustle apps make money with a Google Doc and a prayer. It was a weekend newsletter about city food recommendations. I collected email addresses through a Typeform, copied them into a spreadsheet, and sent each issue by hand from my Gmail account. By issue four, I had 89 subscribers and a mild hatred of copy-pasting.

That was three years ago. The newsletter is still running. It now has 4,200 subscribers. The difference between giving up at issue ten and making it to issue two hundred was not the content. It was finding an email tool that turned my list into income without requiring me to learn SQL.

I have tried five platforms across two digital products, one newsletter, and a consulting waitlist. Two of them were great. One was nearly perfect but too expensive for a Best podcast microphone solo creators operator. Two were free in ways that cost me subscribers. This is a guide for side hustlers who want to send newsletters, sell a course, or nurture leads without hiring a marketing team.

Some links below are affiliate links. If you buy through one, I get a small commission at no cost to you. I only recommend tools I have used for at least 90 days.

What solopreneurs actually need from email marketing

The features that matter are rarely the ones advertised. Autoresponder sequences, A/B testing, and dynamic content blocks sound impressive in a feature table. Most solo operators never touch them. What matters is: can you import your list without it breaking? Can you write an email in five minutes? Will it reach inboxes, not spam folders?

Deliverability is the hidden metric. An email that reaches 80% of your list instead of 95% costs you real money over time. A 1,000-person list at 80% reach loses 150 opens per send. At a 2% conversion rate, that is three fewer sales every time you email. Over a year, it is real money.

Price scaling is the second concern. A tool that costs $15 at 500 subscribers and $89 at 5,000 subscribers punishes growth. Most side hustles scale slowly, but when they do, the price jump feels like a penalty for succeeding. You want a platform that stays affordable as your list grows.

Automation simplicity is the third. You do not need twelve-step journeys. You need a welcome email that fires when someone subscribes, a follow-up sequence when someone buys, and the ability to tag people who clicked a link. If building those takes more than ten minutes, the tool is too complicated.

I tested every platform against those three priorities over at least 90 days of real use. Here is how they performed.

ConvertKit: the creator favorite for a reason

ConvertKit is built for people who make things and sell things online. Not e-commerce giants. Not enterprise sales teams. Solo creators, course builders, and newsletter writers.

The signup form builder is the best I have used. It handles inline forms, landing pages, and exit-intent popups without requiring a plugin or a developer. You pick a template, change the colors, and embed it with a single line of code or a direct link. In ten minutes, you have a working lead magnet.

Tags and segments are simple and powerful. You tag subscribers based on what they bought, what they clicked, or what form they used. I have a tag for people who joined from my Twitter bio, one for people who bought the city food guide, and one for people who never open anything. The last group gets a re-engagement sequence. The first group gets early access to new products.

The visual automation builder is the cleanest in the industry. You drag conditions like “subscribed through this form” or “purchased this product” into a flowchart, and the emails fire automatically. ActiveCampaign’s logic is more flexible, yet ConvertKit wins because I actually understand it on day one instead of procrastinating on setup.

The deliverability is excellent. My open rates on ConvertKit have stayed between 45% and 62% across three different lists. On cheaper platforms, I have seen open rates drop to 28% for the same content and subject lines. ConvertKit invests in their sending infrastructure, and it shows.

What I did not like. The commerce features are basic. You can sell digital products, but the checkout is simple and does not support upsells, payment plans, or complex funnels. For that, you will want a dedicated checkout tool like ThriveCart or Gumroad integrated via Zapier. The pricing also jumps faster than I would like. It starts at $9 for up to 300 subscribers, then $25 for 1,000, then $49 for 3,000. That is fair, but it is not the cheapest.

MailerLite: the budget pick that does not feel cheap

MailerLite was the first email tool I paid for, and I stayed on it for fourteen months. The free tier is the most generous in the industry, and the paid plans are significantly cheaper than ConvertKit at almost every subscriber count.

The email builder is beautiful. They have a drag-and-drop editor that produces clean, responsive emails without touching code. I cannot design. My MailerLite emails still look better than the ConvertKit ones I sent earlier this year solely because the editor is more forgiving. If you care about layout and visuals, this is a real advantage.

The landing page builder is included, not an add-on. You get fully hosted pages with custom domains on paid plans. This saved me $15 a month on Carrd when I was starting out. I built a simple waitlist page with a headline, a form, and an image in about fifteen minutes.

The downside. Deliverability is slightly worse than ConvertKit in my experience. Not bad. Not Mailchimp bad. But my open rates on MailerLite hovered around 38% to 48% for equivalent content. The gap might be 3% to 7%, which sounds small until you multiply it by thousands of subscribers and hundreds of sends.

The price. MailerLite is free for up to 1,000 subscribers with a 12,000 email per month cap. The paid plan starts at $9 for 500 subscribers and scales gently. At 5,000 subscribers, you are looking at roughly $32. That is competitive.

Beehiiv: the newsletter-centric newcomer

Beehiiv is the newest platform on this list, and it is designed almost exclusively for newsletter operators. Not course sellers. Not e-commerce stores. People who write something valuable and want to grow.

The referral program is the standout feature. Beehiiv has a built-in reward system where subscribers can earn prizes for referring friends. This is the same mechanic that helped Morning Brew grow to millions of readers, and it is built into the platform. I ran a month-long referral campaign and gained 340 subscribers without spending on ads. That is not a normal result, but the feature is genuinely powerful.

The analytics are smarter than most. Beehiiv shows you how many subscribers came from a specific post, which posts drove unsubscribes, and how much revenue each email generated if you are using their ad network or native subscription paywall. For newsletter-first businesses, this is the right level of insight.

Why it is not my top pick. Beehiiv does not support automations in the same way ConvertKit does. The tagging is simple. The email builder is plain and fast, not beautiful. If you want to sell a course, send abandoned-cart sequences, or track complex funnels, Beehiiv is the wrong tool.

The price. Beehiiv is free for up to 2,500 subscribers, which is absurdly generous. Paid plans start at $39 for more advanced features. If your entire business is a newsletter, this is hard to beat.

I want to mention one non-affiliate alternative. Buttondown is a tiny, indie tool that costs $9 per month for up to 1,000 subscribers. It is barebones, text-first, and beloved by developers and minimalists. If your brand is “I write words and nothing else,” it is perfect. If you want buttons, images, or integrations, it will frustrate you.

Who should stick with Gmail for now

If you have fewer than fifty subscribers and your newsletter is a hobby, every paid tool is overkill. Google Groups, the BCC field, or even Substack’s free tier is fine. The moment you start wanting to know who opened what, or the moment you cross the threshold where manual sends feel like work, you should reconsider.

If you sell nothing and never plan to, ConvertKit’s commerce features are wasted on you. Beehiiv or Substack is a better fit.

If you refuse to pay for software, MailerLite’s free tier is genuinely usable. It will not scale forever. It will handle a few thousand subscribers with ease, which is further than most side hustles get.

The stack I actually use

ConvertKit runs my main newsletter and my product waitlist. The automations are worth the higher price because they generate revenue while I sleep. A welcome sequence introduces new subscribers to my best writing. A sales sequence fires when someone downloads a free guide. I spend ten minutes setting these up once, and they earn back the subscription cost.

MailerLite powers a smaller side project where I do not need commerce. The beautiful emails make it a pleasure to write, and the cheaper price fits a project that is not yet profitable.

Beehiiv is my experiment. I migrated one newsletter there to test the referral engine and the ad network. The ads are not relevant to all niches, but they earned $280 in a month with 2,100 subscribers. I am watching it closely.

Questions solo operators ask about email tools

Can I switch platforms without losing my list?

Yes. All reputable tools let you export and import subscriber data as a CSV. You will lose some detailed engagement history and automation settings, but the actual list transfers cleanly. Plan an export day when you have no send scheduled, and warm up your sender reputation by sending a lighter volume the first week.

How much does deliverability really matter?

More than price. A tool that is $20 cheaper but lands in spam folders 10% more often will cost you subscribers and sales. Deliverability is worth paying for. I track it in an email tool by watching open rates for the same content over time. A sudden drop is usually a deliverability warning.

Do I need a custom domain?

Not at first. Most platforms send from their own domains by default. Once you cross a few hundred subscribers or plan to sell something, switch to a custom domain. It improves trust and reduces the chance that your emails get filtered as promotional.

What is the difference between a tag and a list?

A list is a group of subscribers. A tag is a label you put on them. The modern way is to use one list and many tags. This prevents duplicates and lets you segment without managing multiple overlapping lists. ConvertKit and MailerLite both use this model. Some older tools still encourage multiple lists, which creates confusion.

How to pick without wasting a month

If you plan to sell digital products, courses, or consulting: start with ConvertKit. The commerce integrations, clean automation, and excellent deliverability justify the cost. You will outgrow the free tier fast, but you will not outgrow the platform.

If your email is purely a newsletter with no sales component: start with Beehiiv. The free tier is enormous, the referral engine works, and the analytics tell you what actually grows your list.

If you are bootstrapping on a tight budget: MailerLite has the most generous free tier and the cheapest paid plans. The email builder is genuinely beautiful, and the only real sacrifice is a few percentage points of deliverability.

Related guides: Best noise canceling headphones remote workers, Best receipt scanner app freelancers.

Pick one. Import your list. Send something this week. The best email tool is the one you actually use. I spent three months agonizing over features and lost the momentum that matters more than any A/B test.